Lesson 3: Preparation

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Video Transcription

Before the upgrade to Joomla 3 we need to ensure that all of our extensions and templates are compatible with Joomla 3. So the first stage in our upgrade is to make a note of any additional extensions that we have added to our web site that weren't shipped with the core Joomla installation.

To see them go to the Extensions menu and select Extension Manager From the list of options select Manage and you will see every component, module, plugin and template that is installed. It is a big list so we can filter the list by selecting the Type and we will begin by selecting Components. Here on the right hand side you can see an Author column. Anything the author name of Joomla Project we can ignore as that is part of the core installation. What we are looking for are the one's that don't say author of Joomla. Here I can see my first one which is something called Akeeba. In my case this is my backup component and I can now go and check to make sure that this version , and the version number is here, is compatible with Joomla 3. We should repeat this for our Plugins and Modules by selecting Module. Here again I can see a module that is not part of the core called responsive slider. And for plugins don't forget that you may have multiple pages. If you see one that doesn't say Joomla Project but is greyed out as this one is here then that is also part of the core Joomla installation and we can also ignore that. When you have made a list of all your components, modules and plugins and made sure that they are compatible with Joomla 3 it is OK to proceed. If any of them are not compatible with Joomla 3 or they have a new version just for Joomla 3 then you should check for the actual preferred upgrade instructions from the developer of that addon. For the Joomla template it is slightly different. We need to first of all find out which template we are actually using.

To do this go to the Extensions menu and select Template Manager. Here are the list of the templates installed on the site. Many of which came with your Joomla installation. If we move over to the right hand side there is a column marked Default. The ones with the yellow star are the ones that we are using. In this case you can see a yellow star against the Bluestork administrator template. And a yellow star against a template called My Template which is my site template. You should also watch out to see if any templates have been marked as assigned because these are also being used on your web site. When you have done that you can go to the Templates link and find the template the actual template you are using and most likely you will see on the right hand side a link to the developers web site. Where again you can check to ensure that you are using is compatible with Joomla 3. In most cases I have found that a Joomla 3 version of the template is available but it is a different installation file and the recommended process is to uninstall the template first before performing the upgrade as this can cause some issues when you've done the upgrade. When you have made your list and checked all your extensions you can now proceed to the next video.